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What do we do?

What do we do?

Just curious. I know I'm a relative "newbie" here to the site, but I feel like I've already made some real good friends in a very short time and hope to keep adding to the list.

I know we all love to: build guitars, play guitars, look at guitars, discuss guitars and occasionally the music we make on them. But that's all I know. I've always found the cross section of society that we musicians (and builders) make up, pretty interesting, and I'm just curious about what some of us do for the "day gig".

Some of you may be lucky enough to do this full time or even make a living playing music, but I'm sure most of us aren't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to get "too" personal. Company names and such are not necessary or asked for. Just curious what you might call your "profession", and I thought it might be a good way for some of us to get to know each other just a little bit better. If this is too "off topic" or if no one is interested, I apologize for the intrusion, and the written results will speak for themselves.

So here goes: I'm a printer. Technically, I work in what is called the prepress department. Been in the business for almost 40 years (I'm 57 by the way). The people in my department PREpare the files and documents for the PRESSes. I got into it by accident as a part time job back when I was in college (a LONG time ago) to make some money so I could by a Fender Rhodes electric piano. Found out I liked it, the pay wasn't too bad and it was even somewhat creative.

Back in the old days it was all cameras, film and chemicals. In 1991, the company I worked for at the time decided to get one of those "new fangled" Macintosh computers and I was selected to see if I could make it work for us. This was back in the early days of what was then called "desktop publishing". Computers were expensive and slow at the time. An 8 megabyte RAM upgrade cost over $3,000 and that was a HUGE amount of RAM at the time. In the mid '90's our first gigabyte hard drive for file storage was ONLY $1,000 ($1 a megabyte) and we thought that was SO cheap at the time.

Anyway, I'm still at it after all these years, and I haven't looked back since. In between times, I've been lucky enough to have been married for almost 35 years, raised a beautiful daughter to adulthood and her own marriage (still waiting for grandbabies!) I've played in a couple of very good semi-pro bands (blues/rock) and have had my share of good times doing that. In more recent years I've been concentrating on just improving my playing, doing a little home recording when I can and building up my guitar collection (about 17 as of last count - not including the ones I've built myself).

Well, That's what I do. How about you?

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Permalink Reply by joe cerroni on August 1, 2009 at 3:13am

Hey great thread,tom, I've been enjoying getting to know the folks on here who've been sharing their vocations with each other. I'm a nurse and I work at a psychiatric hospital. I mostly work with acutely psychotic patients suffering from schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. I sometimes bring CBGs to the unit for "Music Therapy" and the patients for the most part really dig it. i've turned some of my colleagues on to CBGs and now we have 3 nurses and 1 doctor who play CBG! I try to get them to join the nation but as of yet none have, they lurk though. Hope everyone's havin a great day. coffee break's over, back the ward. Peace, Joe

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Permalink Reply by Jataomm on August 1, 2009 at 2:19pm

Hi

Still such a newbie to this forum but I decided to jump in...

I work in education: I used to be a maths teacher (I can hear the intakes of breath already!) but moved into special needs education many years ago. I used to work in school but for the last decade have worked in FE (post 16 education)

I've played guitar off and on for the last 30 years (being 41) but am nowhere near as good as I should be for that number of years. In the meantime I've tried my hand at Bluegrass banjo (too fast...) frailing and clawhammer, fiddle (English/Irish folk) mandolin (the same) and also have a bodhrain...

I came accross cbgs by accident, having taken it upon myself to build a diddley bow and then having a web browse.
I've almost built my first but built my own (very large!! box) I won a 'proper' box on e-bay recently so will be starting another build soon.

I just love the idea of 'down to earth music' which cbgs represent to me.

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Permalink Reply by bairfoot cajun on August 1, 2009 at 11:54pm

hello tom this is a great idea you have. as for me i am currently working in a boat factory that does upholstery work for several different boat manufacturers. i work on the yamaha line.my job is to install parts in a boat splash to make sure that the production line is building the parts correctly. if there are any problems i,m the first to find out about it. i have two different boat splashes[the splash is the top part of the boat where all the upholstery parts go and that attaches to the hull] in my two splashes one has 2 types of interiors that go in it and the other has 3 types of interiors that go in it. the first has been in production for a few years. the second splash is brand new for 2010 model boats. i have only splashed about 15 or so kits in the new boat. i have been in the upholstery buisness since 1984. most of the upholstery work i have done has been furniture related, but i have had the opportunity to work on custom car interiors, custom motorcycle seats, small aircraft interiors,boat interiors,if it floats flies or has wheels on it i have done upholstery work on it. a have also done a lot of antique furniture refinishing,that kinda goes hand in hand with furniture upholstery.i got my first guitar when i was in the second grade of elementary school,that was in the late 60,s. i have owned hundred,s of guitars through the years,but only discovered cigar box guitars last november. i still can not believe that i have not discovered them before then. when i seen a picture of a cigar box guitar for the first time it was a daddy mojo advertisement in a guitar magazine, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and in less than 30 seconds i was convinced that i would build cigar box guitars. so i am very thankful to lenny at daddy mojo guitars for changing my life for a better out look on stringed instruments that i never even imagined existed. i am very thankful for the cigar box nation and its members also because i feel like the folks here are a family of great individuals with quality morals and values that most of our modern world has forgotten about or never even had the chance to learn. i believe i will continue to build cigar box guitars for a long time to come,and every day that i can i will find contentment in this world. thanks tom for having a great idea to ask folks what they do so other folks can see that most of us have come here to learn about cigar box guitars but in the process can also take the time to learn more about each other. great ideas are meant to be shared.

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Permalink Reply by Roosterman on August 2, 2009 at 5:26am

Wow, you are a diverse lot!

Il keep this short for you - if you have read this far you deserve a break! :o)

Im 33, and have played guitar (badly) for prolly half my life now - as well as the piano, flute, saxophone and even the bagpipes briefly! My dad had a rock n roll band in the 60s called The Hullaballoos that did ok in the US - they had a TV show and did a couple of stadium tours, so I guess that rubbed off on me a bit.

After school I did a degree in Earth Resources & Physical Geography, but after graduation went into the family business. At the time we had a succesful furniture wholesale business, importing from the far east and selling to shops, so I spent a lot of days and nights in the van up and down the country.
When things started to go quiet 5 years later, I decided to take a long holiday, sold my house, motorbike, car - in fact, everything I owned, and bought a one-way ticket to Fiji. Other than that, I made no plans, booked no-where, just me, a bag of clothes & my guitar. I landed a job as a dive instructor om a remote island for 3 months and had a blast! Itchy feet eventually led to a ticket to Australia where I spent a year doing some crazy jobs - commercial diving for sea slugs which meant going out to sea for a month at a time, cattle farming (cutting the b****s of a huge bull with massive horns wont be forgotten!), did a couple of months working with the aboriginal tribe at Uluru, conservation stuff... all of it life changing stuff.
Anyways, eventually the money ran out, so had to sell my guitar to get a flight home, and landed broke. Various jobs (chef, insurance sales etc) filled the gap until I settled in a call centre - mind numbingly dull, but paid the rent and gave me lots of free time to get into Cubase and other music software. During that phase I took a night class in music technology I did 2 cds worth of dance music (4/4, drum & bass etc).

Then, 2 and a half years ago my folks found a property near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. It needed a LOT of renovation work, and as it was intended to run a bed & breakfast, me and my better half decided to move up with them. We've done a huge amount of building, decorating, stressing, wiring, plumbing etc etc but the majority is done now. Its a beautiful corner of the world. Its hard work dealing with the general public every day, in summer its often 18 hour days, but the house is now finished (?), business is picking up, and I even have time to build the odd guitar! If you're interested, or if you are coming to Scotland, my web is www.torguish.com.

As for CBGs, I think I stumbled upon one on Ebay. I had one built within a week! I think its fair to say that Im fully addicted, and Im now on build #16, but Im learning something new every time.

As for the future - build more guitars, build or buy a trike, maybe do a bit more travelling... then who knows? See what opportunities come knocking.

Im a big believer in hard work, and my favourite motto? 'If you're not living life on the edge, you're taking up too much bloody room!!'

The nation also deserves a special mention - I doubt I would have got so invlolved or learnt so much if it wernt for the good folk on this site - the advice and friendliness is amazing. There are a lot of you I guess I will never meet, but I sure wish I could.

Cheers fellas.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Doug on August 2, 2009 at 7:24am

But, this is great. Reading your bios, I can see what s dull boring life I have lead. Thanks, now I depressed!..

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on August 2, 2009 at 3:30pm

I'm a full-time cigar box guitarist.

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Permalink Reply by Tam Givens on August 2, 2009 at 4:19pm

Hi Tom

I work for Royal Mail, nightshift in Glasgow Scotland, worked there now for over 27 years,
I also served in the Army for 3 years.
I live in North Ayrshire aprox 20 miles south west of Glasgow.
I am 50 years old, married for almost 30 years and have 2 grown up children.

I have been trying to play music for about 26 years, bought a guitar after attending a John Denver concert in Glasgow.
I now have lots of instruments, and can knock a tune out of most of them. I play in sessions every week in local pubs
and I also play In a traditonal music get together in midweek.
My main instrument is a Mandolin, I have also made a cigar box mandolin, I also play Banjo's, guitar, fiddle, ect.

I discovered CBG's on the net, on youtube I think. I make them for my own amusement, I have no intention of selling them. But I gave 1 to a friend who gave me 2 fiddles (needed restored but I enjoyed fixing them), now someone else wants 1 that I will be parting with for the price of the parts.
My next build is going to be a Tenor cigar box guitar tuned GDAE with Irish tenor banjo strings, I will be making the neck later today.
My future CBG plans, A 3 string tin box guitar.
I will some day build a 4 string banjo tuned aDAd, like a 5 string without the 3rd string, I sometimes play a 5 string in open D that's aDF sharpe Ad, it could do without the 3rd string.

Tam

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Permalink Reply by Tom Lanford on August 10, 2009 at 3:22pm

Alright boy's and girls - as we near the "fabled" 1,000 mark on membership, I know that we've had a LOT of new members in the last week or so since the last post on this discussion.

Read up on "what we do", newbies, and please add your own story if you will. We'd all like to hear about what you "do" as well and how you "found" the site. You'll learn a lot about a good number of these wonderful people on this crazy site.

You'll soon find that we're definitely and eclectic "bunch", to say the least! Have fun! You will, I'm sure!

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Permalink Reply by Nathan King on August 10, 2009 at 9:36pm

I like in your original post, Tom, you say "Some of you may be lucky enough to do this full time or even make a living playing music, but I'm sure most of us aren't." It reminds me of a saying, which can easily be applied to CBGs:

The easiest way to make a small fortune building cigar box guitars is to start with a large fortune.

I am also new to this forum... I'm 25, living in a small mountain town in Colorado, currently unemployed - however my termination was voluntary. Used to work in radio for the past couple years, before that it was college radio.

I've been playing guitar for about 10 years now... Always wanted to make a CBG, but never had enough motivation. Now, without a job, I've got all the time I need! Did a little research on-line, and of course came across this here website.

Currently working on my 5th build, and like just about everyone, learning new things every time and loving every minute of it! I am also really enjoying how I can plan out a CBG, but until I actually string it up I don't know how it'll be. It's sort of like being introduced to the personality of the instrument, which is a very cool moment.

Now I just need to post some pics... :-)

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Permalink Reply by Raymond Overman on August 11, 2009 at 2:01am

Well, guess I'll jump in the pool.

After high school in Eastern NC I spent 2 1/2 of my formative years at NC State before they decided they'd had enough. I went home and found a job in sales with two-way radios and cellular equipment with Motorola. I did pretty good at making the connections but had a hard time getting people to give me their money.

While I was working I went back to school at night and got an Associates in Business Computer Programming (which I never used since RPG and COBOL were obsolete when I started the classes). Funny how your grades get better when you're paying for the classes yourself.

I've been using computers since back in 1981 when Santa Clause brought me an Atari 400 so I made that my career and have been working in some form of IT for the last 17 years. I'm currently an IT Manager for an ingredient branding company near Charlotte, NC that works with it's partners to make their products antimicrobial. When I say that I'm the IT Manager, that means I manage everything related to IT. My office (the first I've had in my career) has a sign on the outside that says IT Dept. My seat is the only one in it.

I've been woodturning for about 8 years as a hobby and have had quite a bit of local and some national recognition. I built my first "Blues Bowl" after seeing a friends CBG. I've made six or eight since then and really enjoy messing around with them. I hope that this will be a niche that can help me differentiate my work from other turners. I've yet to learn to play but I'm working on it and having a fun time trying.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Doug on August 11, 2009 at 3:10am

Raymond Overman, the man that got me started in this mess and he didn't even know it!

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Permalink Reply by Wichita Sam on August 11, 2009 at 5:40am

OK,

I'm a 60 year old Methodist Minister. I got started by seeing a CBuke built by Tiny Guitars on a forum run by Flea Market Music (an American Uke manufacturer). Did research, found the "old forum" and it was off to the races. Jan 08. By now I have built over 130 CBGs of various forms, kits and experimented in all things CBG. The most unexpected thing is it has led to me being asked to play for pay (I won't say professionally, still working on quality).

The best part of the trip has been all the really neat people I've met along the way. Some that I'd even call "friends". At the end of it all, it is so much fun to play something on a CBG and watch people's look of amazement.... and then to know that you'all know the experience too.

the best,

Wichita Sam